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Noah -> RE: Regrets After Play (9/16/2006 4:16:25 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Evanesce
...
Last weekend, I topped a woman for the first time. This woman was a VERY close friend (if I were bi, we'd probably be lovers)... someone with whom I share a rather intimate relationship. We'd talked about it for weeks, and both of us were really looking forward to it.
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When we were finished, we discovered that one of the bruises had a slight "knot," so I took her upstairs and we put ice on it, which eliminated the "knot" in just a few minutes. However, this is where it all fell apart for me. I started feeling guilty for "hurting" my friend, and it just got worse from there.
Two days later, I was in tears. The guilt I have continued to feel over this is so incredibly painful I can hardly stand it, and I've been fearful that our friendship will suffer because of it. My friend says I'm being silly, but I can't help myself. In fact, I've come to the decision that I don't think I'll ever top another female. I just don't want to hurt girls.
Am I making too much of this? Master says I did nothing wrong, but it all feels so very wrong to me.
I'm in no position to conclude anything, so I don't.
A thought which occured to me as I read your account is that the better question might not be whether you're making too much of this. Rather, would it be productive to ask (yourself, maybe with some professional guidance) whether your reaction is primarily about this at all. Can this overwhelming reaction be the liberation of strong feelings about something else which have gone unexpressed until this event was able to serve as a catalyst?
There is a dangerous point in a lot of healthy relationships. Just as a person enters a level of significant trust and perceived safety, demons can come flying out of some internal hiding place. One theory is that the person who suffers this plight manages, perhaps not consciously but perhaps prudently, to bottle these things up in some level of recognition that dealing with them will be trying, emotionally expensive and maybe even dangerous.
Finding oneself, perhaps at long last, in a safe, stable relationship can result in relaxing the force that keeps this internal closet closed and out they come.
Obviously I'm not suggesting that this description fits your situation. Your situation is importantly different. I'm wondering, though, whether something analogous to this could possibly be in play here. There is probably a sturdy floor under your emotions when you play in the terms you describe as usual. Maybe this floor dropped out a little bit in the presence of someone whom you identify with, care about in a special way and perhaps trust more deeply than is the case with your usual partners, with whom only X level of trust ever needs to be invoked on either side.
I do encourage you to take your friend at her word when she says your relationship is not endangered by this. The thing is that you might grossly endanger the relationship by failing to trust her in this reassurance. I mean is she trustworthy in this or isn't she? Having answered that question to your own satisfaction, ask whether these fears themselves are as trustworthy, as it were. Or are these fears suspect in a way? Perhaps expressing something other than what they seem on the surface to say? That's okay if it is the case I think. All very much in keeping with human nature. You can explore them, give them their due, just don't give them an ounce more than that. And please continue to celebrate your friendship and trust your trustworthy friend.
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